


Elsewhere

by Johns_Farthings



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell & Related Fandoms, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV), Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: F/F, First Meeting, Harley Street, I have Feelings about Arabella in both book and show, either pre-established relationship or unrequited love, paintings, your choice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:14:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26971999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Johns_Farthings/pseuds/Johns_Farthings
Summary: A chance encounter brings a glimmer of hope for Emma Pole.
Relationships: Emma Pole/Arabella Strange
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Elsewhere

It does not take long for Emma to develop the habit of wandering aimlessly about Harley Street. There is little else for her to do, shut away from the world during the day and subjected to the waltzing blur of Lost Hope at night. She has no capacity for sewing, or reading, or any of the hundred small things Sir Walter and the rest of the household expect a lady to fill her time with. Exhausted though she is, she cannot bear to be still. Let her guard down, even for a few moments, and the night will creep into her thoughts and make her sick. 

‘You are absent, Emma,’ Sir Walter had said to her, a few days – weeks? – ago, his forehead wrinkled with concern. ‘This pacing, this restlessness. Your thoughts are always elsewhere.’

‘I am half elsewhere,’ she had replied, but he had not understood, and she had not been able to say more. She has given up trying to explain, though she knows they think her mad. She begins to wonder it herself – even as she seeks the grounding tread of her own feet against the floorboards of the house, her thoughts spool away from her, shed like cheap muslin and lost. She forgets where she is, or the places she has been. She is insubstantial and strange, and she cannot keep a firm hold of herself - it is like trying to grasp a reflection in water. 

Perhaps it is better to leave the pieces here in Harley Street, rather than take them with her to that terrible elsewhere. 

Today, she settles for a few minutes in the room with the paintings. It is one that she dislikes, because the pale sunlight upon the canvases gives it an eggshell thinness, an uncomfortable impression that the walls will split apart and reveal the corridors of Lost Hope behind them. But every room in the house has some fault, and there is at least a fire lit. Emma is not chilled – she is never cold, these days, nor warm – but she has a growing horror of dark places, and the orange light is strong and vaguely reassuring in the flimsy room. There is, too, a steadying discomfort in being so close to the flames, where the heat makes her lips dry and itches the fine hairs on her wrists.

She is watching the delicate crumbling of embers in the grate when the sound of footsteps makes her start. There many strange feet in her dreams these days, the endless whirling of cruelly beautiful shoes against stone floors, but these footsteps are not dancing. They are too light to be her husband’s, and too hesitant to be Stephen’s or one of the other servant’s. They are soft, almost cautious. 

Emma looks up. A woman lingers in the doorway, her back to the sopha. She is no dream, no strange remnant of the night's dance. She has come from outside - the hem of her dress is damp from the street, her hair windswept. A loose curl rests in a question mark at the base of her neck, and specks of December rain glisten on her shoulders. She stands silently, looking at one of the paintings - an empty tumble of sea and sky, Venice at the height of a long-past summer. 

Emma holds her breath. Slowly, the woman comes further into the room, moving with a birdlike sense of delight. She regards the second painting as carefully as the first, but Emma does not get the impression that she is studying the scene in an analytical or academic manner. In fact, she rather seems to be allowing the picture to wash over her, as if she is stood on the streets of Venice amongst the oils. For a moment, Emma thinks that she might take her hand and be pulled away with her. 

The woman turns towards the opposite wall.

‘Oh!’ Her voice has the lively music of a brook through long grass. ‘I thought there was no-one here! I beg your pardon for intruding upon you.’

Emma is already reaching out to her, insisting that she stay. As she speaks, she catches sight of herself in the ugly mirror that hangs above the mantel - she is startled to see, reflected in the firelight that falls like the sun between them, that her hand is quite solid, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I recently re-read the scene where Arabella first meets Emma and I just...love it.


End file.
